d and made to
grow by her pluck. He liked to have her near him and when she was out of
sight he felt a bit astray. He never bothered about the future, so the
idea of parting with her had not come to him.

And she? When Raft was out of her sight she felt astray. Her mind had
spun between them a tie, of a new sort in a world grown cynical and old
and cold; an affection permanent as the hills, warm as summer.
Everything good in her loved Raft, it was the affection of a mother for
a child, of a child for a mother.

He had nursed her back to life, he had brought her life, and never once
since that day had he chilled her with a littleness or broken a thread
of what was spinning in her heart. He was illiterate, he was rough, but
he was Raft. He was the great beach of Kerguelen and the sea-bulls and
the distant islands, he was the hand that had destroyed Loneliness and
driven away Death, the child who had listened to Jack and the Bean
Stalk, the Lion that had destroyed Chang, the companion in a loneliness
ringed with despair.

One morning beyond the 40th parallel, and some two hundred miles to the
nor'west of St. Paul, the Chinese mate plucked Raft by the sleeve and
pointed into the west.

The day was clear with a wind just enough to fill the sails of the
barque and a long blue leisurely swell running from the south. Away in
the east was a trace of smoke as though a grimy finger had stained the
sky just above the sea-line.

"Ship," said the mate.

It was the one word of English that he knew. Raft was about to shout and
run to the cabin hatch to call the girl. Then he held himself back. It
might be a false hope. Yet if he had thought he might have known that a
ship in the east meant a ship right across their course, here, where
there were no trade tracks north and south.

Then above the sea-line and clear of smoke he saw her hull.

He pointed to the halyards and the mate understood. The mate was
evidently desperately anxious to be quit for good of his self-invited
passengers, for when Raft came on deck again with the girl they found
the barque under bare poles rolling to the swell and a Chinese flag
half-masted flicking in the wind.

Also, away across the sea, sheering towards them and making to cross
their bows a mile away a two funnelled steamer whose funnels closed to
one as she shifted her helm to get within speaking distance of them.

She was the _Carcassonne_, a seven thousand ton freighter carrying
passengers